Where does “kneel” come from?
Kneel comes from Old English cnēowlian, derived from the noun for knee, meaning to go down on one's knees.
kneel (English): To rest on one's bent knees, sometimes only one;...
Definitions
- To rest on one's bent knees, sometimes only one;...
Ancestry of “kneel”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | Middle English | knelen | To kneel or genuflect; to rest on one's knees |
| 2 | Old English | cnēowlian | to kneel |
| 3 | Old English | cnēow | knee |
| 4 | Proto-West Germanic | kneu | knee |
| 5 | Proto-Germanic | knewą | knee |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | ǵnéwo- | knee |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | ǵónu | knee |
Words derived from “kneel”